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I liked them–I felt, quite as their friends must have done–they were so simple; and I had no objection to them if they would suit. But somehow with all their perfections I didn’t easily believe in them. After all they were amateurs, and the ruling passion of my life was the detestation of the amateur. Combined with this was another perversity–an innate preference for the represented subject over the real one: the defect of the real one was so apt to be a lack of representation. I liked things that appeared; then one was sure. Whether they wereor not was a subordinate and almost always a profitless question. There were other considerations, the first of which was that I already had two or three recruits in use, notably a young person with big feet, in alpaca, from Kilburn, who for a couple of years had come to me regularly for my illustrations and with whom I was still–perhaps ignobly–satisfied. I frankly explained to my visitors how the case stood, but they had taken more precautions than I supposed. They had reasoned out their opportunity, for Claude Rivet had told them of the projected edition de luxeof one of the writers of our day–the rarest of the novelists–who, long neglected by the multitudinous vulgar and dearly prized by the attentive (need I mention Philip Vincent?) had had the happy fortune of seeing, late in life, the dawn and then the full light of a higher criticism; an estimate in which on the part of the public there was something really of expiation.
The edition preparing, planned by a publisher of taste, was practically an act of high reparation; the wood-cuts with which it was to be enriched were the homage of English art to one of the most independent representatives of English letters. Major and Mrs. Monarch confessed to me they had hoped I might be able to work theminto my branch of the enterprise. Theyknew I was to do the first of the books, “Rutland Ramsay,” but I had to make clear to them that my participation in the rest of the affair–this first book was to be a test–must depend on the satisfaction I should give. If this should be limited my employers would drop me with scarce common forms. It was therefore a crisis for me, and naturally I was making special preparations, looking about for new people, should they be necessary, and securing the best types. I admitted however that I should like to settle down to two or three good models who would do for everything.

“Should we have often to–a–put on special clothes?” Mrs. Monarch timidly demanded.

“Dear yes–that’s half the business.”

“And should we be expected to supply our own costumes?”

“Oh no; I’ve got a lot of things. A painter’s models put on–or put off–anything he likes.”

“And you mean–a–the same?”

“The same?”

Mrs. Monarch looked at her husband again.

“Oh she was just wondering,” he explained, “if the costumes are in general use.” I had to confess that they were, and I mentioned further that some of them–I had a lot of genuine greasy last-century things–had served their time, a hundred years ago, on living world-stained men and women; on figures not perhaps so far removed, in that vanished world, from their type, the Monarchs’, quoi!of a breeched and bewigged age.”We’ll put on anything that fits,” said the Major.

“Oh I arrange that–they fit in the pictures.”

“I’m afraid I should do better for the modern books. I’d come as you like,” said Mrs. Monarch.

“She has got a lot of clothes at home: they might do for contemporary life,” her husband continued.